This article explores the coalitional stability of a new cooperative control
policy for freeways and parallel queuing facilities with multiple servers.
Based on predicted future delays per queue or lane, a VOT-heterogeneous
population of agents can agree to switch lanes or queues and transfer payments
to each other in order to minimize the total cost of the incoming platoon. The
strategic interaction is captured by an n-level Stackelberg model with
coalitions, while the cooperative structure is formulated as a partition
function game (PFG). The stability concept explored is the strong-core for PFGs
which we found appropiate given the nature of the problem. This concept ensures
that the efficient allocation is individually rational and coalitionally
stable. We analyze this control mechanism for two settings: a static vertical
queue and a dynamic horizontal queue. For the former, we first characterize the
properties of the underlying cooperative game. Our simulation results suggest
that the setting is always strong-core stable. For the latter, we propose a new
relaxation program for the strong-core concept. Our simulation results on a
freeway bottleneck with constant outflow using Newell's car-following model
show the imputations to be generally strong-core stable and the coalitional
instabilities to remain small with regard to users' costs.Comment: 3 figures. Presented at Annual Meeting Transportation Research Board
2018, Washington DC. Proof of conjecture 1 pendin